BlastereGame

 //Developed by:// Sarah Cisneros, sarah_cis@yahoo.com Dan Comins, dancomins@gmail.com Barbara Fanning, fanning_barbara@hotmail.com ||  ||  ====Overview | Instructional Objective | Learners | Context of Use | Scope | Object of the Game | Competing Products | Design Details | Motivational Issues | Design Process | References ==== = Overview =  Numbers are everywhere.... Now is your chance to see what these numbers can mean to your wallet as you race through the mall using your math skills to find the best deals. You never know what deals and challenges await you.
 * || =Math Mall Madness =

While searching for the best prices for the items on your shopping list, it is up to you to find decimals that are equivalent to percentages, add or subtract decimals or percentages to equal a given number as you race against the clock or another player to end the game with the highest percent of savings in this awesome adventure that equals pure fun!

Shop your way to better math skills with each purchase. Check items off your shopping list and score deals on merchandise. Be sure to watch for sales that can increase your savings but be careful of paying too much for a product that can reduce your overall savings.

Students develop math skills as they evaluate product pricing and select the best deals using decimals and percents. 
 * Find the best deals at the mall while improving math skills with this interactive educational game
 * Select your shopping personality as you compete against other shoppers in this fast paced game that meets state-standard math requirements
 * Improve confidence, accuracy and speed when using decimals and percents
 * Includes math and algebra concepts such as arithmetic operations , <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"> fractions, decimals, and percents
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Single and multi-player options and varying difficulty levels available

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Instructional Objective
<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"> **Math Mall Madness** has been created to address math concepts involving <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">decimals and percents. The content is designed to help anyone over the age of 14 review and improve upon the basic math skills required to be successful when dealing with these types of numbers, particularly when comparing prices and making purchases. The math content will be aligned with the curricula standards in mathematics for the State of California.

//After completing a game in Math Mall Madness s tudents will be able to:// <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"> <span class="wiki_link"> Back to Top
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Calculate the percentage of a given dollar amount
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Convert percents to decimals
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Convert dollar amounts to percentages
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Add and subtract decimals
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Add or subtract a given percentage to an amount, creating a new total
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Compare prices of items based upon sale percentages

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Learners
<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">This game is designed for adolescents and adults that need to use decimals and/or percentages. Adolescents and adults are in the workforce and consumer marketplace, struggling with properly handling financial transactions, deciding which APR financing is best when making a purchase, knowing the relationship between the price of a sale item and the original price, and tipping food servers and service employees correctly.

Young adults trying to get into college (undergraduate and graduate studies) need the content knowledge in this game for math placement testing and for other college course content. And finally, all adults must have a good knowledge base of dealing with decimals and percentages in real-life situations whether work related, home related, or in other areas. Of the different math topics and concepts taught in the State of California, decimals, percentages and number sense are the most used in real-life situations, and for most people on a day-to-day basis.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Context of Use
<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"> The Math Mall Madness game can be used at school or home by players 14 or older interested in improving or refreshing their math skills involving decimals and percents.

Math Mall Madness can be played multiple times and the experience is always different. Players can choose a different “personality” and will be given a different shopping list and budget each time. The game also has varying difficulty levels for beginner, intermediate and advanced skills.

Upon completion of the game players can discuss what they learned about decimals, fractions and percents and how understanding these concepts can save them money in real life. Players will be armed with the knowledge to apply what they learned when shopping at the mall, the grocery store, and online.

Math Mall Madness can be used in a classroom setting equipped with computers connected to the Internet, during student study or free time or as a planned classroom activity. It will be most appropriately used while students are engaged in learning decimals and percents but can also be used as students prepare for standardized testing or for those who need a little extra practice in this area.
 * School**

Math Mall Madness is a Web-based, Flash game accessed through a Web browser that allows for single-player use against the computer or multi-player use where students compete against other players within their class, school, district or even the world. This accessibility can be configured and locked to limit this by a school administrator, teacher or parent. If there are a limited number of computer terminals, students can form teams and share a computer as they compete against their computer or against other teams.

Players select a “shopping” personality and are given a shopping list and budget to begin their shopping spree. Players will race through the mall and its 20 shops looking for the best prices and deals on merchandise while using fractions, decimals, and percents. In addition to regular sales, <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">" super sale announcements <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">" are randomly available requiring students to consider the order of their purchases and timing of them. Players have between 5-20 minutes to complete their shopping and achieve the highest savings based on the selected difficulty level. If students fail to complete the shopping list: the remaining item MSRPs will be added to their overall score thus reducing their overall savings. **The player who has the highest percent of savings displayed in total dollars saved at the end of the game wins.**

Home play of Math Mall Madness is similar to the play in schools however access to players on the Internet is openly more available unless options are set by a parent to limit this.
 * Home**

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<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Scope
<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"> Math Mall Madness is an arcade-style online Flash-based game -- that being said, the world in which players will navigate will be somewhat large. There will be 20 stores at the mall of varying types -- clothes, sporting goods, toys, electronics, etc. Players will be timed playing against one or more players, either computer or living opponents (this will be up to the player upon entering the game interface), in a 5 to 20 minute mad-dash to shop players work to secure the best prices (in terms of percentages) on 10 pre-selected items found throughout the mall. Navigating between the stores will be quite speedy so that the user can concentrate on the actual game play of being in stores and shopping around as opposed to taking valuable time just walking around in a mall. The game is meant to be challenging, fast, and requires a little bit of strategy on the part of the player in order to secure a win by finishing the game with the most savings using one's math skills.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Object of the Game
<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"> The object of this game is to purchase all the items on a given list with the highest overall percentage of savings. If players spend too much time going from store to store hunting for better prices, they might run out of time. They also need to stay within their pre-set budget. And once the time is up, if players have not purchased all of the items on the list, each missing item will be automatically purchased for the player using its corresponding MSRP. Upon completion, each player will be able to view his/her calculated percent savings and can choose to move on to another game and/or level of play.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Competing Products
<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"> The "blaster" or arcade genre of games is well-suited to learning mathematics. It provides a format in which players not only learn how to solve math problems, but how to do so with increased repetition and accuracy. To that end, it is no surprise that there is no shortage of similar games related to math instruction -- it's a subject that meshes well with this format of game. Here are a few examples:

http://www.knowledgeadventure.com/mathblaster ** This is probably the oldest, most venerable, and most successful eGame franchises for math in the history of personal computing. It started in 1987, and over the past 20+ years has been revised numerous times as technology and graphics on computers have improved. According to the website it is trusted educational experience used by millions of parents, teachers, and kids. There are many, many incarnations of this game featuring mostly the same characters focusing on many different math concepts up to pre-algebra. The game featured on the site teaches the basics of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division and then helps children increase their calculating speed and accuracy by participating in fun, fast-paced gameplay.
 * Math Blaster

http://www.mathplayground.com/percent_shopping.html This is one game in a series of mini-games found on the MathPlayGround.com website. The content, decimals and percentages, is quite similar to the content of our game; however, it's difficult to say this game is truly "fun." In it, you drag a few toys to the counter, and then the game walks you through adding up the items, applying the percentage, and finding the final total price. The concept is sound, but the game could be greatly improved to make it more fun and appealing.
 * Percent Shopping**

iTunes Store As you can imagine, there are hundreds and hundreds of math applications and games designed to help people of all ages increase their speed and accuracy much in the same way that Math Blaster does. While most of these "games" are really just dressed up flash cards presenting users with addition/subtraction/multiplication/division problems and 4 or 5 answers to choose from, there are some that look better than others. One of these is PopMath (iTunes link), which provides a more dynamic way of approaching the same concepts. In it players are supposed to pop bubbles by selecting a simple equation and matching it with its answer from among multiple equation and answers on screen at the same time. When a match is made, the bubbles pop. It's a simple, but fun way for kids to learn these concepts.
 * iPhone Math Games**

[| http://www.alleducationalsoftware.com/xs43292.html] This game obviously combines sports and decimals using real-life scenarios. It looks as though there are five mini-games including a wind sailing game, basketball game, and card game. Then a sports announcer apparently comments on your progress through the events. Again, it's about increasing speed and accuracy in an ostensibly fun way.
 * Sports Math - Decimals Made Easy**

[| http://www.alleducationalsoftware.com/xs28007.html] This looks to be another popular math game franchise featuring several different topics. This one focuses on concepts from 3rd-6th grade math curriculums. There are several fun activities, each dedicated to one of a dozen or so different concepts. The game also features a "Grow Slide" which helps to record a child's progress and then somehow adjusts to concepts that a child needs to learn next as well as increasing the difficulty of concepts a child has already mastered.
 * Mighty Math -- Number Heroes**

[] The graphics for this game are very appealing and simple, and the navigation is clear and easy for moving the player to the four major areas. The four different areas of play are a bank, a cafe, a toy store, and a workout gym, and it is a one-player game with a choice between a male or female character. The object of the game is to go to the four different areas and answer enough questions per visit to earn a gold coin. The game is over after a player earns four gold coins. The concepts in this game are adding decimals in the form of money, finding percentages using fractions and division, comparing pricing of the same items, and calculating the total price after adding gratuity. The game can be made more challenging by choosing to work more with percentages at the onset of play.
 * Math at the Mall**

Clearly there are many electronic, arcade-style math games in existence. Everything from large-budget educational software to iPhone games to simple online-Flash games. As stated earlier, this genre of game is well-suited to increasing speed and accuracy of math skills. Obviously, Math Mall Madness is quite similar to other math eGames in that it is aimed at this very same goal. Some of these games even roughly concern our same math target area and use the idea of shopping as well (including one in a mall setting).

In order to differentiate our game from the other similar games we tried to look at what we felt were the inherent weaknesses of the games (especially the online Flash games we could actually play) -- what made these games less fun to play. One thing we noticed was that aside from Math Blaster, most of these games we reviewed did not mention or have any sort of time component. Since the aim is to try and increase speed and accuracy, we think the addition of some sort of timer for completing the tasks is important.

Another aspect we noticed that was common among all the games was that they were all one-player games. None provided any options for playing either with or against another player, either real or computer-based. We feel that adding a multi-player component to the game would help make this game more fun by "raising the stakes" a little bit. This would be handled similarly to many Flash versions of card games (like Poker) and arcade puzzle games that through use of the Internet allow real people without even knowing each other to play against one another. Players would come to a virtual lobby of sorts where the computer would give the player the option to either play against a computer or real-person. If the player wants to play against a real person, the program will wait until someone else selects that option somewhere else on the Internet and then begin the game.

Finally, regarding fantasy, many of the software titles (Math Blaster and Mighty Math Number Heroes for example) are concerned with exogenous fantasy -- the fantasy elements have nothing to do with actually getting the answers to the math problems correct. Many of the Flash games, on the other hand, employed endogenous fantasy elements, actually providing real-world scenarios of when using particular math skills would be appropriate (such as with shopping). We feel the endogenous approach is probably a stronger one since we want players to recognize when these skills could come in handy in the "real world." It was important however to find a way to make the game fun. Most of these "games" were just tutorials on how to perform the concepts with fancy graphics. By adding some actual game play elements like choices (which stores to go to), competition, strategy (what items to buy first), a timer, etc., Math Mall Madness will prove to be far more interesting than many other similar math eGames. <span class="wiki_link"> Back to Top

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Design Details
<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"> The ability to apply and use math concepts such as decimals and/or percentages in our everyday lives is essential. Adolescents and adults who lack these skills will struggle and often make poor decisions when handling financial transactions, determining financing options for large purchases, knowing the relationship between the price of a sale item and the original price, and tipping food servers and service employees correctly. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"> Math Mall Madness has been developed to meet this need and provide a fun and interactive way for adolescents and adults to practice and improve their decimal and percentage math skills in a virtual environment based on the real world. Due to the endogenous fantasy elements found in the game, the skills learned in this virtual environment can easily be applied to real world scenarios. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">

**Overall Look and Feel**
<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"> The game will take place in a virtual mall environment where the player takes on the persona of a shopper. The mall will feature a series of stores, a food court, shoppers and other elements you find in a typical "real life" mall. The virtual mall will resemble the world found in simulation-style games like Sim City or the Sims, where the player is looking down from a "bird's eye view" at the mall and their player within it giving the player a clear sense of place within the mall. Graphics will also be similar to those found in other simulation games -- animated characters and settings with bright colors and "cartoony" life-like elements to round out the virtual world of the mall (graphics are envisioned to be similar to those of games like "The Sims Online" -- an example screenshot from this game appears directly below this paragraph). Like any normal mall, the player will constantly hear the the low drone of sounds of children and families throughout, "super sale" announcements (which also will be an important aspect of gameplay), and easy listening music that can often be found in a mall enticing people to feel welcome so they buy more things.



<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">To enhance the mall experience the game will also feature a number of other personae of typical mall dwellers including shop owners, sales people, other shoppers, and mall walkers. Shop owners will be found in the various stores overseeing the shop and will include both men and women serving in this role. Sales people will also be depicted as men and women of varying ages and backgrounds and will be seen in the stores talking with other shoppers, folding or stocking merchandise and working the cash register. Other shoppers will be found in stores and in the piaza area of the mall. These shoppers will include men and women and children of varying ages and backgrounds. Mall walkers will include men and women in track suits found briskly walking throughout the mall's piaza area.

The simulated world consists of the mall itself, featuring 20 stores in 5 different store categories -- sporting goods, electronics, shoes, department stores (clothiers), and health/beauty/accessories. All of the stores will be scattered along the mall walk -- a basic map outline as well as a listing of all the stores appears below.



<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">**Player Profiles** Each player will take on the persona of a mall shopper by selecting from a number of profile options including gender (male or female), age (16-20, 25-35, 45-50, 65+) hair color (red, blond, brown, gray, black, purple, and blue) hair cut (short, long, medium, mohawk) and clothing style (business, casual, stylish, athletic and punk). These options will enable the player to create an avatar that is a much like or unlike their own real-life persona as they wish. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"> The purpose of Math Mall Madness is to assist adolescents and adults alike in improving their math skills in decimals and percents. This is accomplished through a competitive arcade style game where the object is to complete the game with the highest overall percentage of savings displayed in dollars.
 * Player Goals and Objectives**

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">**Game Play** Players will log on to the Math Mall Madness web site and choose a mall shopper persona. Once the player has selected their shopping persona they will then be asked to choose their difficulty level. Difficulty levels will range from easy to medium to difficult and will also allow the player to determine the length of time in which they will play. Players can choose between 5, 10, 15 and 20 minutes to complete their shopping list. This allows for players who may need a little extra time to complete their transactions. As player skill level increases time limits can be decreased. Difficulty level selected will also determine the items on the shopping list and their budget. A level of easy isolates items on the list to a specific type of store allowing players to focus on their calculations. A level of difficulty includes items on the shopping list that can be found throughout the mall. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 94%;"> <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Players will then choose if they would like to play against the computer or against other players. If the player chooses multi-player, the program will wait until someone else selects that option somewhere on the Internet and then begin the game. Players will also have the option to complete a game tutorial that explains how to play. This tutorial will include information on moving your character, checking your status and a quick guide of math formulas needed to be successful in the Math Mall Madness.

When game play begins, the user(s) will be assigned a shopping list of 10 items that they need to purchase and a budget based on their selected difficulty level. Players move around by clicking directly in the screen window to instruct their avatar where to move. Players need to visit stores where their items would be sold (a shoe store for shoes, a sporting goods store for a golf club or fishing pole, etc.) When a player wants to enter a store, they perform the basic steps of talking to the store's register clerk, making calculations for the item(s) they might purchase from that store and either taking notes (to compare one store's deal to another) and then moving on to other stores or purchasing items from that store's list. A flowchart of the purchasing process appears below. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 94%;">



<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">The Game Interface
<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"> The interface of the game is designed to be fairly intuitive with all the tools necessary available on-screen at all times. A timer showing the remaining time left in the game will be constantly ticking down to 00:00 in the upper right-hand corner. Underneath the timer will be a calculator that players can use to make their percentage calculations. There will be a "Help Me" button on the calculator that when pressed will open a pop-up tutorial walking the user through making the calculation properly. Underneath the calculator will be a small, scrolling area where players can type notes to help remind them of prices of items at other stores as they comparison-shop their way to the most savings (obviously players can use a real pen and paper for notes, but this area is provided in case the player doesn't have these items at their disposal).

The middle of the screen will feature the main interactive area where players can move their avatars to the desired store, enter the store and talk to the store register clerk to see the list of available items and their prices. Much in the same vein as classic computer adventure games like "The Secret of Monkey Island" or "King's Quest," players simply click on the screen where they would like to move and click on a person they would like to talk to. As an alternative to using the mouse for this purpose, players can also choose to use the arrow keys on their keyboard to move their player and hit the space bar when they want to enter a store or talk to a person. This would be covered in the game play tutorial mentioned above. Directly beneath the main interactive area is the "Chat/Alerts" area. This area serves several purposes. First, it allows players to chat with their opponents in-game if they wish (for example if they're playing a friend in a classroom situation). It also serves as a text-based way to inform players of "Super Sales," and will also display comments from the non-player characters throughout the mall, including some of the obstacle people mentioned below and store register clerks.

The left hand area of the screen is devoted to keeping a player's list up-to-date and budget as they purchase and return items throughout the mall in their quest for more and more savings as well as providing some feedback on how opponents are doing -- how many items they have purchased, their current savings, etc.

A simple mock-up of the basic layout of the game's interface appears below.

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"> <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"> Players will have to overcome a number of obstacles during game play. These obstacles include allotted time, difficulty level, super sale options, random distractions, and math content knowledge. > <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"> <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">
 * Obstacles**
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">**Time**: The time limit for each game requires players to finish purchasing all the items on his/her list within the allotted time or receive the minimum percentage of savings per item not purchased. Players could spend too much time searching for the highest percent discount on only a few items, and run out of time for other items. Or, players could purchase items too quickly and miss out on special deals/discounts offered in various stores.
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">**Difficulty**: The game offers three levels of difficulty-easy, medium, and hard. The levels will vary by time limit and variety of items to be purchased. If players choose a level that does not offer an appropriate challenge, boredom can become an issue. And, if the level is too difficult, the challenge becomes overwhelming and the level will be very difficult to complete successfully.
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">**Super Sales**: These pop-up features will show players special discounts on specific items, and players may or may not have already purchased the item displayed. The player will have a choice of returning the item and re-purchasing it with the discount (eating away at the time limit), or ignoring the special, possibly missing out on the game-winning discount. This feature offers an appropriate distraction to all players.
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">**Random Distractions**: As players travel throughout the mall, various distractions will delay or redirect players, taking away precious seconds from play time: 1) Salvation Army - the player is required to stop and talk to a volunteer about donating, 2) Construction - a player chooses a store that is under construction, so they must redirect themselves to another store that carries the same item, 3) Robbery - a player chooses a store that is being robbed, so they must redirect themselves to another store, 4) Technological Malfunction - the player's check card does not work when they go to make a purchase, so they are required to visit an ATM machine to withdraw cash, and 5) Spillage - crowds pinch in and someone spills coffee on the player, redirecting them to the restroom to clean up.
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"> **Math Content Knowledge**: Throughout the game, players need to use percentages and dollar amounts. This math content knowledge, although commonly used in real life situations, presents problems for some players in the area of retention/recall of previously learned material. Therefore, to help with this obstacle, players will be provided an on-screen interactive calculator and a section of math notes discussing percentage conversions.

**<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"> Artifacts**
<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-weight: normal;">At the beginning of a game, every player is given the exact same budget and list of ten items that they need to purchase before time runs out. This list also keeps track of the scoring system in the game. Scoring is tabulated in terms of the most savings in terms of dollars. In order to win, a player needs to make sure that his/her final total is the lowest dollar amount among all the other players by the time the timer runs down to zero so that they have secured the most in total savings. The "high score" is actually the lowest score, much like the scoring system in golf; however, to make this more intuitive the total savings is also displayed -- the winner will have the highest total savings on their list.
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">**Lists of Items**: Players will be provided with a list of items to buy once the playing level is selected, and that list will stay on the left-hand side of the game screen during the entire game. The items on the list will be scattered throughout the mall based on the store category, the number of categories per list based on the difficulty level chosen by players. As players make their purchases, the list will keep track of the prices paid, percentages of savings, and dollar amount of savings. If time runs out, the unpurchased items on the list will be filled in using the Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) which is noted on every player's list.
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">**Budget** - Players will be given a specific budget for their shopping spree based on the level of difficulty selected. As players make purchases, the budget will update and keep tracking of spending to date.
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">**Opposing Players' Lists**: A smaller portion of the left-hand screen will be used to show players the progress of other players, i.e., how many items they have left to purchase, and location. Although lists are generated randomly, all players will have identical lists.
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">[[image:Calculator.jpg align="right" link="http://www.prodigitaltips.com/wp-content/uploads/free-calculator-widget-1.png"]]**Interactive Calculator**: On the right-hand side of the screen will be provided an interactive calculator, very basic in design, complete with all four primary operations, the square root function, the memory/recall function, and the percent key. Players can use the calculator during all parts of the game.
 * <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">**Math Tutorial**: The tutorial will be a brief overview of taking percents of numbers, converting percents to decimals, and comparing numerical values given in different forms.
 * Scoring System**

The list keeps track of your savings for you. All of the ten items will appear on the screen at all times along with the MSRP of the item, the price they were able to purchase it for at a store, and a tabulation of the results at the bottom -- the total MSRP of the items and the player's total dollar amount. If the time runs out before a player has had a chance to purchase all the items on his or her list, then the MSRP of those unpurchased items will be added to their final dollar amount. It is definitely in the player's best interests to try and purchase their items from somewhere as the MSRP will always be a bit higher than he or she will be able to purchase the item in store. An example of a completed in-game list appears at the left. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"> Technical Elements
<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"> Math Mall Madness is an online, multiplayer, Flash-based game. Flash is one of the most popular interactive technologies on the web today and will probably continue to be so for quite some time yet. ActionScript 3.0 will be used extensively within the Adobe Flash authoring software solution incorporating high-resolution vector and raster based graphics designed in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. Sampled sound files from various online libraries will be compressed down to MP3 format for use in-game. Flash is a multiple-computer platform technology available on both Windows and Apple operating systems, so it will by default be a cross-platform title.

Due to the nature of the game, developing for other platforms such as the Wii, X-Box 360, or PS3 isn't necessary; this will be an entirely online computer game only. This is also meant to be a short, "run and gun" style of game, so saving in the middle of the game is neither necessary nor possible; however, players will be allowed to submit their scores at the end of the game to try and qualify for the "Top 10 Most Savings" which will be saved in-game and shown at the end of a player's round. This is aimed to help foster a friendly sense of competition and community around the game which hopefully will encourage players to return for more practice in these mathematical concepts.

Players will need a computer with an Internet connection and a recent Flash-enabled Web Browser such as Safari, Internet <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Explorer or Firefox. **<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">

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<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">**Motivational Issues**
<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">When designing simulations and games for education and training there are several theories and concepts that exist to ensure teaching is effective and learning outcomes are achieved. When developing Math Mall Madness we considered several of these concepts and theories including the generalizations of game preferences of men and women (Schell); Malone and Lepper's Intrinsic Motivation; Maslow's Theory of Human Motivation; and Keller's ARCS model. All of these theories and concepts are relevant however it was important to find a balance between them especially as we worked to develop an e-game addressing the often dreaded subject of Math. Math can cause anxiety for many and is rarely associated with "Fun." To ensure Math Mall Madness can appeal to the target audience and learning objectives were met, we used the various theories to guide game development.

When considering gender generalizations as outlined by Schell we wanted to find a way to engage both boys and girls. To address the preferences of boys we included mastery of math skills and competitive elements where players compete against the computer or other players. To address the preferences of girls we used an endogenous fantasy of a mall that could be easily translated to a real mall situation. We also included the game tutorial that allows the player to watch and practice prior to game play.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">In addition to the gender generalizations we addressed the key elements of motivation as outlined in Keller's ARCS model while incorporating motivational elements from Malone and Lepper's Intrinsic Motivational theories and Maslow's Theory of Human Motivation.

**Attention** Grabbing player attention for a game focused on Math can be challenging. We incorporated several elements to address this challenge including **surprise** where the players do not know what their shopping list will include and they have the option to play against players all over the world. For example they may have the option to play against a classmate or another student in China. Each game will have a different shopping list and budget. Other elements to gain and retain attention includes **unexpected obstacles** and **opportunities** for players to overcome or take advantage. Unexpected obstacles include Salvation Army workers, Construction and even Robbery to name a few. Opportunities for savings include "Super Sales" that randomly occur during game play.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Given the importance of the topic we wanted to provide students with a reference point therefore we chose to set the game in a mall. The Mall provided an endogenous fantasy that tied into the real world making the game relevant to the player's lives. **Relevancy** often helps with motivation because learners are able to see the benefit and **value** of the skill.
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Relevance **

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Math is often challenging and students often shy away from topics that they feel are too difficult. We wanted to make sure the students had a chance for **success** while also being **challenged** and **engaged**. This was accomplished by including the option to select your difficulty level and game time to allow the player to feel they have control over the game and the option to be successful. We also included these elements to allow the player to challenge themselves by choosing a higher difficulty level and shorter game time. The ability to change the difficulty level eliminates the threat aspect of practicing/learning math skills, and it enables the players to venture further than they might if assigned a particular level by the game computer or by someone else.
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Confidence **

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"> **Satisfaction** Satisfaction is also an element of motivation to encourage replaying of the game. In order to accomplish this we clearly stated the **goals** of the game and provided the game tutorial that demonstrating how the game is played and the final outcomes. Managing the players **expectations** and making the player feel good about the outcomes are essential motivational elements especially when tackling a challenging topic. We also included chat options with other players to receive **feedback** and also discuss elements of the game.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Design Process
<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Our first idea was to marry mathematics with surfing to lighten the intensity of learning mathematics. The idea was to create a fun way for kids to practice calculating percentages in an arcade-style fashion, much in a similar way to Math Blaster, arguably the most recognizable math electronic game there is. However, it was pointed out to us and we quickly agreed that while such an exogenous fantasy might be fun for kids to play, the theme didn't really match the content and purpose of the game, so this idea was shelved. We then put our thoughts into different themes that would prove more endogenous in nature, requiring a medium to heavy use of percentages, such as sports statistics and shopping. Eventually we decided on the idea of shopping and began coming up with gameplay ideas that would be both fun and foster the concepts and principles we were aiming to teach.

One of our group members is a mathematics SME, so it was here where we gained most of our specific content background knowledge. Specific content was taken from the [|California Mathematics Standards] that address percentages, and our SME was able to give detailed explanations where necessary. Background knowledge was also gained from our personal experiences in dealing with percentages in real-life shopping situations.

We started off by doing a Google search to discover how others had tackled math in an electronic game format. Unsurprisingly, due to the nature of the mathematical concepts we wanted to tackle, there was an overwhelming number of results. When digging a little further in the results we found a few games that dealt with shopping, but of the ones we tried, none of them were much fun. We realized that this was because these weren't really games at all; they were simply tutorials walking a person through a shopping scenario involving percents. There was no scoring, no true game play elements, and nothing to motivate the player to continue to play the "game" over and over again for practice -- they were quite dull and simply not fun.

In response to these dull shopping simulations, we quickly came up with ideas to improve this genre of game. Our first idea was to set the game in a mall. We decided that one of the main reasons (at least in terms of shopping) to learn how to use percentages is for comparison shopping in order to find the best deal -- especially in light of the current U.S. economic situation where comparison shopping to find the best deal has almost become a national past time. A mall with multiple shops offering the same items at varying prices and varying percentages off those prices seemed like a perfect match. We also wanted the game to be relatively fast and fun and we came up with numerous ideas to this end: having a list of items for players to find the best deal on (like a scavenger hunt); having a time-limit in which to get those items; pitting a player against either a real or artificial opponent (we noticed that all of the math eGames were single-player only); and having "super sale" specials occur randomly offering extra percentages off certain in-store items found on their list.

Initially, we wanted to get as far away from the dull shopping tutorials we had seen online as possible -- instead of showing people how to do these calculations as these simulations had done, we were planning to assume that players were already familiar with the concepts and principles and that we would just focus on rote practice of these concepts to enhance speed and accuracy. However, during one of the class sessions a peer wondered why there was no means of instruction on how to do these calculations and that this might not be too helpful for someone who is only learning the concepts. We decided that he was right. We already had planned to have a calculator on-screen at all times, so we thought that we could add a "help me" button to the calculator so that if players were struggling there would be a way for them to quickly get some guidance while playing the game that would help them to learn the concepts and then do better the next time they played. Along the same lines, we had realized that we hadn't really talked about making the game more easy or more challenging in any way. We realized that unlike most board games, there are really easy ways to make eGames more or less challenging so that players can tailor the difficulty of the game to their liking. For this game we decided on making the time limits scaleable -- players could set less or more time to obtaining the items on their list.

As indicated, many of the existing math games weren't games at all. They were more tutorials that were often unengaging and most likely not replayable. This was important to note when creating Math Mall Madness and will be important going forward as we create and develop games, lessons and courses. We now have a better understanding of what motivates players to learn, the potential gender differences and strategies to engage learners. Some of these lessons include: <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"> Back to Top
 * Lessons Learned**
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Challenge players/learners while balancing with the opportunity for success
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Give players/learners the opportunity to control their learning environment
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Provide clear learning objectives
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Provide feedback to players/learners
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Learner retention can be enhanced through relevant and real world scenarios and examples

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">References

 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Keller, J.M., & Suzuki, K. (1988). Use of the ARCS motivation model in courseware design. In D. H. Jonassen (ED.) Instructional designs for microcomputer courseware (pp. 401-411). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Malone, T. W., & Lepper, M. R. (1987). Making learning fun: A taxonomic model of intrinsic motivations for learning. In R. E. Snow & M. J. Farr (Eds.), Aptitude, learning, and instruction: III. Conative and affective process analysis (pp. 223-253). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Schell, J. (2008). The Art of Game Design. Burlington, MA: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.

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